In Search of Restitution
by rainwater tears
Summary: Rory leaves looking for the part of herself she’s lost, guided only by a figment of her imagination.
1. The Way Out

Title: In Search of Restitution  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summary: Rory leaves looking for the part of herself she's lost, guided only by a figment of her imagination.  
  
Author's Note: I don't know where this idea came from, but I'll dedicate chapter one to Oregano, as I was reading "The Boy to her Right" when it did.

* * *

"You have to make a choice, you know. You always have to make a choice."  
  
She turned over in her bed and wiped another tear from her eye. The night was dark enough that her window reflected her room, and she wondered how skewed an outsider's perception of her would be. A good girl, a Yalie (spirit board and all), a reader. Not _the Other Woman_.   
  
"Why are you here?"  
  
"Oh, I thought that would be obvious. I always show up when you don't want me. Right?"  
  
She sniffled. "I never said that."  
  
"No, but you meant it."  
  
"No, I didn't!"  
  
"And there's that word again. Clearly Yale has done nothing for your vocabulary."  
  
"Shut up! Just leave me alone!"  
  
The box of CDs was on her bedside table, her sheets smelled like him, she couldn't get the expression on her mother's face out of her mind.  
  
"If you want me to go just say so."  
  
"I did."  
  
"Well, how about once more...I don't know that you meant it."  
  
"I meant it, I meant it." The one tear that had been making its way down her cheek in some sort of masking grace gave way to a flood. She was sobbing. The tears wouldn't stop as she threw the pillow at the window, knocked the CDs to the floor and tore through the house. She could see herself on the couch eating pizza, hear her own laughter at her mother's snarky comments, taste years of junk food and coffee rising in her throat. She needed to get out.

* * *

Three hours later she was on a plane. The nauseous feeling was fading as the altitude rose, but she couldn't get the ring of her own laughter out of her ears.  
  
The in flight movie was _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_. She wondered what memories she'd erase. Jess? Dean? Yale? Would she just start over from scratch, a 19-year-old infant?  
  
"You can't erase me, you know."  
  
She jumped in her seat, and the person across the aisle from her offered up a strange look. "Planes make me nervous," she said and immediately headed for the bathroom.  
  
"You can't just lock me out. I'm a part of who you are."  
  
"You are not. You never knew me well enough to be a part of me."  
  
"Oh, yes, because you know yourself."  
  
She tried to lock him out of the small room, but he just rematerialized on the other side of the door.  
  
"I'd like to think I do."  
  
"Well, just because you'd like to think it doesn't mean it's true."  
  
She washed her hands in the sink, still trying to scrub away the past week. She felt like she was constantly bouncing back and forth between them. The one year she'd been boyfriendless she'd felt empty, and it had still ended with a rush of feelings and confusion and helplessness that she always associated with the two.  
  
"I can't help you, you know."  
  
"Well, that's not much of a surprise coming from you."  
  
"Oh, burn. I don't think I can go on any longer."  
  
"Grow up, Jess." His name sizzled off her tongue, like she didn't want to say it unless it was to hurt him.

"In case you didn't notice, I did. Now it's your turn."  
  
The flight attendant knocked on the door of the bathroom. "We're starting our decent. You need to return to your seat, Ma'am."  
  
"I'll be right out."  
  
He faded before her eyes until she was just staring at the sterile white door of the stall. "He chooses this visit to be vague?" she asked herself as she returned to her seat and buckled her seatbelt.

* * *

"Now arriving in Venice, California. The temperature is currently 94 degrees and the local time is 2:43 AM. Thank you for flying American Airlines today."  
  
The airport was stuffy from the humidity and she couldn't believe that it was early morning. It was hot in Connecticut, but not like this.  
  
"Where are you going?" He wasn't there, but his voice whispered in her ear.

"To find myself."


	2. Welcome to Oz where the hot dogs are alw

Title: _In Search of Restitution_  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: If I owned "Gilmore Girls" don't you think this (or something like it) would be happening instead of, well, anything that's currently coming out of ASP's warped brain?  
  
Dedication: To Tye/Christie, 'cause she made me write it.

* * *

Chapter two: Welcome to Oz...where the hot dogs are always fresh

* * *

"Hello?!"  
  
"Yeah?!" A woman with short blond hair poked her head out the door in front of Rory and the crowd of dogs in the front yard ran towards her.  
  
"I'm looking for Jimmy Mariano."  
  
"What, are we going to have teenagers on rotation now?" the woman said, almost to herself.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
The woman came out into the yard and waded towards Rory through the sea of dogs.  
  
"Hey, you look familiar. Do you live around here?"  
  
"Uh, no." Rory dropped her bag and pulled her hair into a low ponytail to get it off her sticky neck.  
  
Recognition dawned on the woman's face. "You're Jess's girl."   
  
"I'm sorry?"  
  
"Yeah. He had a picture of you. Left it lying on the kitchen table once. You're even prettier in person."  
  
"Oh. Thank you."  
  
"I'm afraid yo're not going to find Jess here. He left about six months ago." She walked over to a doghouse a few feet to her right and knocked on the side. "I might have a phone number, but I can't promise it's recent."  
  
A girl who looked to be about nine years old popped her head out of the doghouse. "Yeah?" she asked.  
  
"Do you know where I put Jess's number?"  
  
Before the girl could say anything Rory interrupted. "I'm not looking for Jess."  
  
"You're not?"  
  
Rory shook her head. "I'm looking for Jimmy."  
  
"Well why didn't you say so? I'll take you right over. You want to come Lil?"  
  
The girl nodded and pulled herself the rest of the way out of the doghouse. Once the rest of ehr had appeared Rory realized (from the book in her hand and the reading light attached to it) that she had been using it as a literary escape.  
  
"I'm Sasha, by the way, and this is Lily."  
  
"Rory."  
  
"Nice to meet you, Rory." 

* * *

_Dante's Inferno_ was the busiest stand on the beach when Sasha, Lily, and Rory arrived. The walk over had been fairly quiet, at least on Rory's end, but Sasha spent the first half telling her about life in Venice, and once Lily got over a bout of shyness she insisted on showing Rory every detail of the town she grew up in.  
  
"And that's the _Inferno_," Lily finished up as they approached the crowd. "Jimmy's great uncle used to own it, and Jimmy reopened it last year about the time that Jess came. He says he's going to leave it to us, but I don't know what Jess would do with half a hot dog stand. I think he'd probably ban the hat and apron Jimmy used to make him wear."  
  
Rory laughed at the visual. She could see the uniforms that all the employees were wearing, little white and red caps with full aprons to match. She couldn't believe that Jess had ever agreed to put one on, but according to Lily Jess had spent a good part of the previous summer serving dogs to anyone who asked.  
  
"Rory!" Sasha was beckoning her over to the side of the building, where a man who looked like an older, slightly scruffier Jess was standing. "Rory, this is Jimmy, Jimmy, Rory," Sasha introduced them.  
  
"Hi."  
  
"Hey. Sasha tells me you're a friend of Jess's? Is he okay?"  
  
Rory shook his hand. "Yeah. As far as I know anyway. I haven't talked to him much since last year."  
  
"Oh. Then, not to be rude or anything, why are you here?"  
  
Rory tucked her hair behind her ear. "Um. Do you think we could maybe sit down?"

* * *

The fact that Jimmy actually found them a quiet bit of beach was somewhat shocking. The sun was high and the entirety of Venice, California, seemed to be out. The pair sat down on a sand dune and Rory started to talk, rambling and nervous.  
  
"I dated Jess for about 6 months, and he was immature and unreliable and wonderful the entire time, but he left without saying goodbye about a year ago. That was when he came here. I don't know what happened while he was gone, but in February he showed up in Stars Hollow, told me he loved me, and left. And I haven't been able to sleep well since then. Then, last week he showed up again, but at my dorm this time, and he asked me to come away with him, to go to New York and live some sort of wild bohemian lifestyle that we're always reading about but that I'm too afraid to embrace. So, of course, I said no, because that's what any sane person would say, but I'm beginning to think that Jess is the sane one and I'm just Courtney Love flashing Letterman and throwing mics around, because I'm about as destructive. I mean, I slept with my married ex-boyfriend last night, which I would never in a million years do, but I did do it, and then I ran away, which seems even more unlikely, and I haven't talked to my mom, or to my best friend, or to anyone.  
  
"But I realized that between last May and last week Jess grew up, or something akin to it, and I think I'm growing down, and whatever changed Jess happened somewhere between here and New York. And I know it's crazy to ask, and I'm perfectly accepting of a 'no,' but I was wondering if, maybe, I could stay with you and your family. And now I'm realizing how stupid that sounds, and how, maybe I should just go back to Connecticut." Rory got up, brushing the sand off her butt and turning so that he wouldn't see her blush. "I'll, well, thanks for listening and, yeah."  
  
She started to head down the beach hoping she wouldn't end up lost, but Jimmy caught up with her. "Rory, wait!"   
  
She stopped but didn't turn, fully embarassed by everything she had just said.  
  
"Now, Jess didn't talk to me a whole lot. He made a few confessions his first night here, but that was about it. Pretty much the only thing he did tell me was that he'd left a girl back in Stars Hollow, and that he thought that maybe he loved her. Now, unless he was a terrible cheater, and I don't think he was, because he never struck me as that type, you are that girl, and I trust Jess's judgement."  
  
Rory had turned during his speech, and now she stared at the older man, wondering where this was going.  
  
"Sasha seems to have taken a liking to you, and Lily gets along with everyone, so I'll have to ask if it's okay with them, but I don't see why you wouldn't be welcome in our home."  
  
Rory smiled and impulsively gave Jimmy a hug. "Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome." 

* * *

While Sasha sent Jimmy to get pinapple pizza Rory and Lily discussed books on the couch. Lily, it turned out, had read many of the same book Rory did at her age.  
  
"How could you think that Jonah died at the end? That's such a depressing way to put it."  
  
"I don't think so. I think the world he was living in was more depressing. No one knew their parents, no one made any of their own decisions. I want to decide my own job, not have a bunch of old people decide it for me."  
  
Rory sighed and gave in, they'd been discussing it (or, rather, arguing over it) for about twenty minutes, and neither had been successful at changing the other's mind. "And what do you want to be when you grow up?"  
  
"Oh please," Sasha called from the kitchen, "not this question. She'll still be telling you a month from now."  
  
Lily smiled at Rory. "Ignore her, she doesn't know what she's talking about. She's the one who's filled my head with possible careers." She paused for a second before continuing. "I either want to be an explorer, a book critic, a professional surfer, a novelist, a travelling bard, an artist, or a lawyer."  
  
"That's an interesting collection of careers. You know the town I'm from has a troubadour."  
  
"What's that?" Lily pulled her knees up to her chest in the corner of the couch and rested her chin on them. She was small with big glasses that made her eyes look a bit owlish. Her peasant top and flared jeans gave away the California girl in her, even if her mousy brown hair and the writer's bump of a determined fourth grader tried to hide it.  
  
"He's a man that hangs out around town singing and playing the guitar, like a traveling bard without the traveling part."  
  
"Oh. Cool. But I think it would be way boring without the travel opportunities."  
  
"I think you're probably right."  
  
"So, what are you going to be?"  
  
"Well, I'm studying to be a journalist. I want to be a foreign correspondant."  
  
"What's that."  
  
"That's kind of like a travelling bard, too, only I'd be reporting the news instead of singing." Rory smiled at the nine-year-old. She had never really liked kids, mostly because she found it hard to talk to someone when she was always having to explain what she meant, but Lily was smart and once you got her going she liked to talk. Aside from the glasses she wasn't that different from what Rory was like at her age.  
  
"Okay, pizza's here!" Jimmy called as he came in the front door, "although I can't for the life of me understand why you wouldn't all want juicy pig sticks from the _Inferno_."  
  
"Huh, I don't know," said Sasha coming to greet him, "maybe it's because you call them juicy pig sticks."  
  
"That might be it."  
  
Rory smiled as she watched the scene before her. The three were a family, if not by marriage and all then at least by love. They were a family, but she didn't feel excluded. She felt welcomed. She felt just as loved.  
  
"No wonder he changed," she thought to herself as she reached for a slice of the pie. 


	3. Well, it sure beats Sorry, I got pregnan...

Title: _In Search of Restitution_  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: Yeah, right.  
  
Author's Note: To Lee, because she named a thread after something I said (ooh, look, a rhyme!)

* * *

  
  
Chapter 3: Well, it sure beats "Sorry, I got pregnant over winter break."

* * *

The night was the calmest Rory had ever seen. Every window in the house was open as if to promote some sort of breeze, but nothing moved except a bead of sweat slowly trickling its way down her forehead. She couldn't sleep.  
  
The fact that she hadn't slept in three days was probably not a good thing, but at that point it seemed Rory didn't even remember that it was important. She sat up on the matress Jimmy had set up for her in the living room and pulled her cell phone out of her bag. The number that should have been familiar under her fingertips came slowly. The pads of her fingers slipping from her own sweat.  
  
_Ring_.  
  
_Ring_.  
  
_Ring_.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
Her mother's voice was groggy with sleep, and looking at her watch Rory realized it was 6 AM in Connecticut.  
  
"Mom?"  
  
"Rory?! Where are you? Are you okay?"  
  
"I'm fine. I'm in California."  
  
"California?"  
  
Even though the beach was blocks away Rory could hear the waves lapping against the shore. It sounded like the gentle kisses her mother would lay on her forehead every night before bed.  
  
"Rory, you need to come home." Lorelai sounded worried, but Rory couldn't give in to it. She had lost too much in Stars Hollow to return right away.  
  
"I can't."  
  
"You can't? Rory, do you have any idea the kind of ruin you left behind? Dean's a mess, Lindsay showed up at the inn crying tonight, and Taylor organized a search party that encompasses about half the town."  
  
"I'm not ready yet." Rory detached herself from the conversation as much as possible so as to keep from giving in.  
  
"Where are you even staying?"  
  
"With Jimmy and Sasha."  
  
"Who are they, a couple of bums you met on the beach?"  
  
"No. Jess's dad and his girlfriend."  
  
Lorelai laughed a hollow laugh that Rory knew to mean something between anger and fear. "Well there's someone I trust with my daughter, a deadbeat dad and the woman who took him in."  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"Don't 'hey!' me. I'm sure they're nice people, but he hasn't exactly shown himself to be a responsible person in the past, why should I trust him now? I've never even met him."  
  
"You took the words out of my mouth. You've never met him, you don't know who he is or what he's like."  
  
"Is he anything like Jess?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Well, then you're proving my point."  
  
Rory sighed, trying her hardest to keep from exploding. Her mother didn't know what this felt like. She had never lost herself so completely that she didn't know which way was up. Or, if she had, she had never needed a remedy for it that was this extreme.  
  
Sometimes Rory wished she was more like Lorelai, the woman who always had a comeback, never forgot to breath, and was rarely too intimidated to give someone a piece of her mind. She knew life had not come easy for Lorelai, but it had never caused her to follow a phantom ex-boyfriend across the country. Right?  
  
"What about Yale, Rory?"  
  
Rory hadn't realized the lull in conversation until her mother pulled her back with the sharp tug of a fish hook question.  
  
"It's summer."  
  
"Well, how long do you expect to be out there?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"And if you're still there when the fall semester starts? What then? What are you going to tell them? 'Sorry, I won't be there this term, I got a bad case of run-across-the-country-itis'?"  
  
Rory tried to fight off a biting remark, but failed. "Well, it sure beats 'sorry, I got pregnant over winter break.'"  
  
Her mother's silence was proof she'd struck a chord. "Harsh."  
  
Rory was tempted to hang up, but she knew it wouldn't prove anything, and so she continued. "What do you mean, Dean is a mess?"  
  
"He showed up at the Dragonfly today asking where you were. He started cryig when I told him you were gone. have you ever seen him cry?"  
  
Rory shook her head. She knew full well that Lorelai couldn't see her, but her silence was answer enough.  
  
"He left Lindsay."  
  
Rory still didn't say anything.  
  
He'd left Lindsay for her. It wasn't really that surprising. Dean had always been threatened by others in Rory's life, but he had also always trusted her, and he knew that by sleeping with her he had claimed her for himself. Leaving Lindsay wasn't a risk anymore.  
  
But she had surprised everyone (including herself) by leaving Stars Hollow.  
  
"I have to go, Mom."  
  
"I want an address, Rory, and a phone number. And an arrival date."  
  
"What am I, a bread shipment?"  
  
"Address, phone, date."  
  
Rory hung up then heaving a great sigh and falling back against her pillow. She loved the feeling of sinking down into a mattress after a deep breath. It was like being swallowed whole by a sea of blankets. The salt water air left her hanging in an early morning stupor, the kind only reached by those willing to stay up till early morning. If she didn't know that the sun didn't come up at 4 AM in the summer she would have sworn she saw the first rays dancing across the windowsill.  
  
When the first rays really were coming up Rory finally drifted off to sleep.

* * *

It was 11 AM when Lily started bouncing on Rory's feet.  
  
"Get up, get up, get up!"  
  
Groaning Rory cracked open her eyes, and immediately regretted it. The California sun was bright against them, seeping in through the thin skin of her eyelids so that even with them closed she couldn't escape it.  
  
"Come on, you promised me you'd take me to the boardwalk."  
  
Rory rolled over and pulled a pillow over her head.  
  
"Rory!"  
  
"Ugh! How are you this awake?"  
  
Rory had been in Venice a week and a half, and already she was a part of the Mariano family (for they called themselves that, as Jimmy and Sasha were as good as married and Jimmy was as good as Lily's dad). Every time Rory thought about that she realized that a year before she didn't think she would ever see another Mariano again.  
  
"Get up!"  
  
"Fine."  
  
Rolling off the mattress was the most painful part of the day, every day. A combination of coast switching, not sleepign for 3 days, and funny finals habits had led to a strange schedule. Sasha was nice about letting her sleep, and Jimmy got up before everyone to go open the_ Inferno_ each morning, but by 11 every day Lily gave into her need for company and woke Rory up.   
  
"We're going to the boardwalk, right?" Lily asked as she followed Rory to the bathroom that held her toothbrush.  
  
"Yup."  
  
"And we're going to watch the skaters and read and get ice cream."  
  
"Uh huh."  
  
"And stop at the arcade."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And you'll let me challenge you to Dance Dance Revolution."  
  
"Sure."  
  
"You're way more fun than Jess."  
  
Rory smiled at the girl over her toothbrush. She had her hair pulled into pigtails, and she was wearing a pale yellow one piece with denim shorts.  
  
"You're way more fun than Jess, too."  
  
"Tell me more stories."  
  
Rory spit into the sink and wiped her mouth before starting. "Well, one time I invited, or blackmailed him into coming, to dinner at my grandmother's house..."

* * *

The boardwalk was a sweltering, sticky haven for rollerbladers and kids on summer break. As Rory and Lily exited a used bookshop advertising a 46% off sale (which hinted back to Stars Hollow for Rory and left her feeling just a bit homesick) they were nearly run over by a super-skinny teen in a bikini headed for the non-fat gelato stand. When they entered the air-conditioned arcade (it's first breath of cold air sending goosebumps fleeing up their arms) they had to wait in line to play DDR (Rory lost to Lily due to her terrible coordination and complete lack of rhythm). At the ice cream shop Rory applied aloe vera to Lily's shoulders as she licked the strawberry cheesecake ice cream drizzling down her thumb. It was the way a boardwalk should be, full of sweaty, sunburned kids dragging their parents behind them, and sandy, tanned teens discussing the pros and cons of lipgloss as opposed to lipstick.  
  
When they had finished their ice cream, burned it all of with DDR, and purchased three new used books each they settled down on a bench to read. Lily opened a loved copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (rereading, she'd told Rory, in preparation for the movie, which Rory had, the night before, promised to take her to), and Rory tucked herself into Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, the title drawing her in, and the back cover promising a treat.  
  
They stayed that way for nearly three hours (breaking occasionally to layer on more sunscreen or read each other a particularly funny or interesting passage. When they finally did return to the house they both had pink cheeks and paper cuts. Rory was worn out from the little girl's enthusiasm, but Lily was bouncing off the walls (no doubt a result of too much ice cream and not enough substance).  
  
"What did you do to Rory?" Sasha asked as the two came in the front door.  
  
"Nothing, I just entertained her for a day."  
  
Rory managed to give Sasha a weak smile before collapsing on the couch. "I haven't been this tired since my mom and I had an all night brat pack marathon the night before we left for Europe."  
  
"When did you go to Europe?" asked Lily as she handed Rory a pillow.  
  
"Last summer. It was my graduation present."  
  
"Was it fun?"  
  
"It was great. We backpacked through France, Spain, England, Germany, Poland, Italy, Ireland. Everywhere. We stayed in hostels, and we visited all sorts of famous places. We found this great fondu restaurant in Paris where you have to climb on the table to get to your seat and everyone sits together. It's probably ridiculously unsanitary, but the food was fantastic. We went to Madam Tussauds in London and we saw her wax models of decapitated heads, and we visited the Louvre and the home Albert Einstein was born in and the Leaning Tower of Pisa."  
  
Rory watched Lily's smile stretch across her face. She knew the little girl wanted to travel, she'd made that very clear, and just imagining the fantastic places Rory had seen was making her visibly shiver with excitement for the day she would.  
  
"What was the best part?"  
  
"It's completely cliche, but I loved looking out over Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower. All the lights and sounds. It was stunning."  
  
"I bet."  
  
"Okay, ladies, dinner's ready," Jimmy called from the kitchen, and they headed in to eat.

* * *

Alright, well, it's not 5000 words, it's not even 2000, and Phantom Jess didn't show up like I promised, but the next chapter will be longer. 


End file.
